A Matter of Trust (3 page)

Sir Vivian watched her expressive face closely as Nesta forced back the immediate sense of frustration and denial that coursed through her.

She realised what she was experiencing, of course. She would one day be a practising psychologist herself, so she should! And right now she was giving in to a mild feeling of paranoia. But her own instincts and common sense told her that Sir Vivian was not closing ranks. He was not trying to con her (or her father) out of their due rights. He was not scheming to destroy the precious papers, or keep her dangling on a string until he could think of a way of silencing her.

He was a well-respected and decent man. And, for her own mental health, she had to begin trusting in people again. And what he said, really, only made sense. And she certainly didn't want to lay herself open to counter-charges of libel or defamation of character. Things would be tough enough without that.
Besides,
she hadn't any money with which to pay a barrister to defend her in a court case.

No. In these circumstances, Sir Vivian was right. The only ethical and moral thing to do was get irrefutable proof first. And although she had no doubt about the guilt of the Don they were discussing, would it really hurt her to agree to say nothing, until Sir Vivian was as convinced as she was?

Slowly she leaned back against her chair. ‘Very well, Sir Vivian,' she said quietly. ‘I promise I won't tell anyone about these papers until I've got undeniable proof of my claims.'

She didn't know, then, just how very much that promise was going to cost her.

*           *           *

Nesta left a while later, feeling a little easier in her mind. The psychology Don had had a photocopier in his private study, and had been more than amenable to her taking a copy of everything she had, and retaining only the photocopies for himself, whilst she held on to the originals.

He'd also gone over with her a list of things he was to do next—most of which included interviewing Dons and students who'd been around when her father had been up at Oxford.

He'd promised to start right away, and she believed he would. For now she had other,
more
immediate and practical things to concern her—like where to find some cheap lodgings.

Inside his house, Sir Vivian rose slowly and stiffly from his seat and made himself another cup of tea, watching from his window as her mint-green VW Beetle drove away. He was left with a feeling of acute depression.

Then he began to read Brian Aldernay's papers. The originals had had a dusty feel to them, further evidence that Nesta's claim to have found them in the attic of her house was probably a truthful one. And even though he had only photocopies now, some of the strength of character in the man's handwritten notes in the margins still came through.

Sir Vivian had an academic's skill at reading. He read quickly, able to skip and skim until he came to really pertinent passages, all without losing the thread of what he was reading.

As the hours ticked past, he forgot to eat lunch, but the pile of notes he was making began to overflow his notepad. At just after three o'clock, he turned the last page of the manuscript, and leaned slowly back in his chair.

He looked grey.

Nesta had not lied about any of the pertinent facts. The documents were exactly as she'd described them. Already he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that tasted like
melting
iron. Bitter. Acrid. Destructive . . .

But he still had a lot of work to do.

He'd practically have to camp out at the Bodleian for the next few days. Perhaps he'd take the material down to his country cottage, where he would be free of phone calls and friends popping around, and could get some really serious studying done. His findings would have to be meticulous, scrupulous and unarguable. It would take time and patience.

But he was not looking forward to it.

Normally, whenever he thought of the Bodleian, he did so with pride. The famous library, over the centuries, had retained a copy of every thesis written by a graduate in Oxford. It was also given a copy of every book ever published. The Bodleian, that vast reservoir of research and academic publication; it had always been his own private paradise.

But now, amid its tomes and silent places, he might just find evidence of a deep, dark, ugly secret.

But, in all fairness, he was not yet
that
well acquainted with the Don concerned, or with the D.Phil thesis in question, to judge whether or not plagiarism had taken place.

Plagiarism. Or something much, much worse?

Sir Vivian slowly leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. If it was true, it would rock Oxford University like a bomb. It would mean catastrophe for one college in particular.

And
for one currently well-respected Experimental psychology Fellow it would mean ruin. Disgrace. Perhaps, even, prosecution.

Suddenly Sir Vivian began to wish that he'd never set eyes on the pretty, clever, determined Nesta Aldernay.

CHAPTER TWO

Nesta Aldernay was not the only young woman entering Oxford for the first time that morning, but the arrival of Markie Kendall couldn't have been more different.

Whilst Nesta searched for cheap accommodation in a second-hand VW Beetle, Markie Kendall made her way down the Banbury Road in a low-slung silver Ferrari convertible, with personalised number plates. With the top down, and her long trademark waist-length black hair flying out behind her in the breeze, many heads turned to watch her progress into the city of dreaming spires.

And clustered outside the famous Randolph hotel, situated opposite one of Oxford's many stately museums, a gaggle of paparazzi awaited her arrival—news of which had been carefully leaked by her publicist.

As she pulled into the narrow hotel entrance and flashed a smile at the sudden
flurry
of flash photography, she surreptitiously checked her appearance in the driver's mirror. She needn't have worried. Her make-up—which she'd applied that morning in her London penthouse apartment overlooking the Thames—still looked good.

She parked her car in a VIP slot and got out, making her way back to the front entrance. She could have chosen to slip into the back of the hotel, but Markie Kendall rarely made anything other than a major entrance. Especially when she was working.

‘Marcheta, over here,' a voice shouted from the journalistic crowd the moment she appeared, and a brief noisy barrage met her as she stepped out onto Broad Street. ‘Marcheta, are you in Oxford for long?'

Markie vaguely recognised the second voice as belonging to one of the bigger daily papers, and she paused in front of the middle aged man who was waving a mini-cassette recorder in front of her famous face.

‘Hello, boys,' Markie waved generally at the group and stood, one hip slightly thrust forward, and flipped a hand through her hair. It was the pose that had first made her famous when she'd achieved supermodel status at the age of only seventeen, and she still used it occasionally even now. As expected, the photographers went wild.

She was dressed in a modest knee-length fitted dress of mint-green, black and white,
with
a high collar and full-length sleeves. It was the work of a new designer to the fashion scene, but she was wise enough to know that showing hardly any flesh made her look, paradoxically, even more sexy. Not that she'd ever posed in the nude, of course. And even when she did photo shoots for lingerie ads, she never wore any of the really revealing items, preferring to leave that to the newer, hungrier girls coming up through the ranks.

At nearly thirty, her days at the very top of the tree were numbered, and she knew it. But the thought didn't fill her with dismay, as it did some of her fellow models. She had long-since made her plans to diversify, and that was partly why she was in Oxford now.

‘Yes, darlings, I'm here for a little while,' she cooed to the crowd in general. ‘I'm launching a new fragrance this Valentine's Day, and the laboratories creating it for me here in Oxford have invited me to check on their progress. Isn't that sweet of them?' she asked archly, and sighed theatrically. ‘But I really can't imagine why any of those nice, clever, boffin-type scientists would want to ask me to visit them in their lab, can you?'

She did a way-over-the-top puzzled pout, and they all erupted into laughter. Even several of the older hacks had to smile. Everyone in the business knew that Markie Kendall was hardly just another dumb model. For all of her career she'd handled her own
money,
and her investment portfolio alone was the envy of many people in the city. Since her father was a well-known financier, and she herself had been educated in top schools all her life, it was, perhaps, only to be expected.

‘What's the perfume called?' one female voice called from behind a press of photographers, who'd leapt forward to catch that pretty pout for their editors back home.

‘Why, Marcheta of course,' Markie said, batting her eyelashes frantically. ‘What else?'

Like a few of her contemporaries, she was known by the single name. Never Miss Kendall, or even Marcheta Kendall. Just and only Marcheta.

Her deeply romantic mother had indeed and truly given Markie Kendall the name of Marcheta (pronounced Mar-keet-hah). As a child though, her family and friends had always called her Markie. But when it became clear, just after hitting puberty, how truly and astonishingly beautiful she was going to become and she decided to try her hand at modelling, it made sense to make the most of her unusual and pretty name.

And from the moment she'd walked into a top modelling agency at the tender age of fourteen, and the company's leading photographer had taken her picture and told the owner to sign her up on the spot, the modelling phenomenon known as Marcheta had been born.

Now,
fifteen years later, hers was one of the most photographed faces in the country if not the world. At nearly five feet eleven inches tall, and with the lithe willowy grace of a black swan, her figure had modelled and sold everything from the top designer one-off dresses worth tens of thousands, to high-end chain-store ranges. And with her perfect pale oval face and large blue eyes, her image regularly promoted cosmetics and jewellery ranges.

Now she'd decided that it was time to start promoting her own products. The fragrance was only the first in a planned long list. She was already in talks with biochemists lured from a big Parisian cosmetics giant to make her own range of lipsticks, mascara, eye shadow and face creams. Within ten years she fully intended to have her own range of fashion lines as well. Which was another reason she was in Oxford—she wanted to see if she could spot the next big thing straight out of University and snaffle him or her for herself.

‘Is that the only reason you're here, Markie? Or is there a man?' a young lad shouted.

Markie Kendall laughed, a genuinely amused gurgle of merriment. ‘Oh you lot! You're always trying to pair me off with someone! How many times do I have to tell you? I'm currently foot-loose and fancy free. Honest! Cross my heart,' she said cheekily, and
did
just that. Of course, the flash photography went wild again as she made the provocative gesture over her left breast.

And she was in fact, telling the truth. She'd never been married, and had in fact dated relatively little so far. Most of the times when she was seen out and about with this film star at a premiere, or with that pop star at a rock concert, or eating with a television presenter at a top restaurant, they'd been ‘dates' arranged by her publicist and the PR people of the other parties concerned.

It was far harder to meet a genuine ‘normal' man when you always had to drag around ‘Marcheta' with you than most people would imagine, Markie mused a trifle sadly. Some men found her fame too much to bear and quickly ran a mile when the media began to sniff around their personal lives. And the ones who liked the limelight tended to be jealous when she, inevitably, was always the biggest star. All of which meant that her love-life to date had hardly been anything to write home about.

The truth was, Markie Kendall led a much more sedate and scandal-free existence than any of her fans would be willing to believe!

‘Actually, I'm here to give a party. Well, not me personally, but Oxford University. My late grandfather, as you know, attended here back in the thirties, at St Bede's College, and when he died, he endowed the University with the
Kendall
Prize.'

Several of the journalists nodded their heads, marking them out as locals, whilst the majority merely looked bored or disinterested. Markie gave a mental sigh. That was the trouble with the media—they went wild for the shallow and meaningless, but give them anything genuinely interesting to listen to and they didn't want to know!

Nevertheless, she was determined to do a good job. ‘The Kendall Prize is given every five years, and is awarded to a psychology Fellow of the University. It's a substantial amount that funds the winner for a five-year period in their area of research. It's hotly contended. This year, my father asked me to attend the award Dinner and present the Prize. But don't ask me who's won it, because even I won't know until the Dinner!'

That last was rather a fib, but she'd been sworn to secrecy.

‘What're you going to wear, Marcheta?' a voice demanded, and Markie bit back a groan of annoyance. What on earth did it matter what she was going to wear, she thought crossly. Didn't they understand that a five-year research grant was heaven to an academic? Every time the Kendall Prize became available, the Oxford University psychology Department fairly boiled with excitement!

But as she looked around at the crowd of bored or eager journalists, the seasoned hacks
and
the still-keen newcomers, she realised that it was pointless trying to tell them how really proud she was to be here on behalf of her family to award the prestigious Prize. None of the rest of Markie's family had followed her illustrious grandfather into the academic world, but her father especially was proud to uphold the family's heritage. And she'd been genuinely touched and proud when he'd asked her to award the Prize, for the first time.